What Has Design Taught You? Enter Shopify + Dribbble’s Design Contest

Think back to the very first day you considered yourself a web designer. Do you remember it? Maybe it was during orientation at a college or university program, day one of your first design job, or the afternoon you first found yourself dreaming in pixels.

What would you tell your younger self? What delusions did you hold back then; what mistakes were just waiting to happen? What has design taught you throughout the years?

That’s the theme of this year’s Dribbble playoff. We challenge any designer out there with a Dribbble account to complete the phrase, “Design taught me…” with a rebound shot to our post on Dribbble. You don’t have to use the words “Design taught me” in your post, but you totally can if you want to.

The rules

The competition starts today, so start creating! use type, icons, illustrations, patterns, or finger paint — anything you can dream up works for us. You have until the end of the day on October 30 to submit your designs, and you can read the official rules here.

Post a rebound to our original piece to enter.

The prize

In the interest of continual learning, and because there is still so much that design can teach us, our prize package contains everything you need to level up your design skills.

Our grand prize winner will receive $1,000 worth of design books, magazine subscriptions, tools, technology, and some sweet custom bookends to hold them all up on your shelf. Plus you’ll get $4,000 in cash to buy whatever else you were hoping was in this kit.

Looking for inspiration?

Shopify designer Andrey Gargul won an internal competition to be featured as the opening shot for our Dribbble Playoff.

Here’s what he had to say about this design:

A long time ago I was a freelance designer, lived on a tropical island and didn't have free time at all. I always took my job seriously, so I might work all night when it was needed. Because I couldn’t give a part of my responsibilities to someone else. How could I? I was sure that no one knew my projects as good as I did.

Surprisingly, working with someone less immersed in the project might be beneficial. How many mistakes could I avoid if I talked to someone who was not blinded with technical restrictions or just haven’t spent a week working on a concept that happen to be a total garbage?

I’ve learned my lesson. Now I work in the team of amazing people with different sets of skills that allow us to see the different sides of the project. As a designer, I see my work in accumulating these visions and base my design on them.

Do I get more free time? Nope, design is hard.

We ran a competition last year too — Take a look at the winners of last year’s design challenge to get the wheels spinning.